Batten class awards $35,000 in grants to local nonprofits

A class in the Batten school gave away $35,000 in grants to five different local nonprofit organizations last week.

“NGOs in the Policy Arena,” co-taught by Batten Prof. Paul Martin and Grey McLean of the Adiuvans Foundation, is designed to teach students how nonprofits operate in the context of public policy. The class has been giving grant money to community nonprofits since 2012, totaling $390,000.

This year’s focus was on food insecurity and access to health care and housing, and the grant money was given to nonprofits working in these areas.

The five nonprofits receiving grants this year were the Charlottesville Free Clinic, Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, PACEM, CASA, and ReadyKids.

Charlottesville Free Clinic, which received $12,000, is an organization that provides health care — including medications, dental care and medical care — to low-income uninsured members of the Charlottesville community. Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, which received $5,000, provides food to over 100,000 people per month in over 200 different locations in Virginia. PACEM is a religious organization, which helps provide shelter for the homeless, and CASA is a social advocacy group fighting child abuse and neglect. ReadyKids offers a variety of services for families ranging from counseling to programs promoting healthy relationships.

Martin said the organizations and their nonprofit work are the most important aspect of the project for his students, and said they hoped to highlight this through their work providing grant money.

The students were tasked with soliciting applications for grants and then determining which organizations were most deserving of the money.